In the Face of Death
by Calie1
Summary: Faced with death, everything else didn't seem to matter.


Oliver turned at the sound of a sigh. "What?"

She shook her head. It wasn't that she didn't want to respond, but the oncoming tears had formed an impossibly large lump in her throat making it impossible. Instead she only leaned back against the metallic wall and slid down, bringing her knees up against her chest as she sat on the ground.

"How much time?" Oliver glanced at the ticking time piece in the corner.

Chloe glanced over at it. "Eight minutes."

"Come on. That's still eight minutes. We-"

"Have no time!" Chloe exclaimed, gesturing with her hands wildly. As panic began to set in she dropped her head back against the walk and closed her eyes, trying her best to regulate her breathing. "I just, I just want to sit."

He frowned at her and looked around the room one last time and swallowed thickly before he finally allowed himself to face the inevitable. Turning his eyes back towards Chloe, he made his way to her and quietly slid down the wall next to her. "I guess I messed this up."

Chloe opened her eyes and turned her head to face him, never lifting it from the wall. "No, you tried."

"It was my fault, I-"

"No," Chloe smiled sadly at him. "There's no point in going down that road Oliver. There's only eight minutes left and I think this bomb will take us out before you can figure out a way to do yourself in over the guilt."

He forced a grateful smile before dropping his head back against the wall. "So much for all the self torture. He wasn't even dead."

"No," Chloe whispered softly, shaking her head.

Oliver sighed and rested his temple against the cool metal, not once taking his eyes off hers. "I'm sorry you got pulled into this."

"You have nothing to apologize for. I was stepping on Lex's toes long before you came along."

"Chloe-"

"Oliver, look. We've got six minutes left. What's the point in arguing?" He nodded in response and Chloe offered him another small smile. She let here eyes roam his face, and then settled them on his hair. Reaching a hand up, with no hesitation, she combed her fingers through it. "I was always curious if it was hard or not."

"And?" he asked, mildly curious despite the situation.

"Soft." Nothing was said for the next few moments as she combed her hand through his hair, barely noticing anymore that she was doing so. When she looked back into his eyes the softness there was what ultimately broke her. She blinked furiously for a moment, hoping to hold back the tears, but she quickly realized it didn't matter. "What's the appropriate conversation for two people who are going to die in five minutes?"

Oliver lifted his head from the wall and twisted his body to better face her. When he lifted his hands to her face and wiped the tears from her cheek with his thumbs she didn't even flinch. "Say the most important things, the ones they never did before."

"In just over four minutes?" Chloe said with a watery smile, the tears evident in her voice.

"Maybe we should have started twenty minutes ago." Oliver slid a hand around her neck and pulled her against him. She came willingly, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"It doesn't matter. There are too many things I regret and wish I would have done to fit into only a few minutes." Chloe buried her face into his neck. Not caring as her tears soaked his skin, or how tightly she held his neck.

"Look at me." She pulled away slowly, not leaving much distance between there faces. Her green eyes eyes shown brightly with tears. "Then what about just the two of us?"

Chloe laughed bitterly. "Even the apologies to you would take longer." She moved to hide her face into his neck, block out their surroundings. She didn't want to see it, the fluorescent lights, the metallic walls, the bomb waiting for them. His hands caught her face though, holding it inches from his own.

"Neither one of us would have the time for that." He searched her eyes and then turned to the bomb. Three minutes. "Getting over your cousin was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. It was a lot easier when I could throw myself into work. Which meant spending more time with you." He breathed deeply, finding his courage, knowing he didn't have much time to pause. "And..." He faltered for a moment, losing his nerve. Oliver pushed her hair away from her face nervously and grasped her face in his hands again. "But I got over her only to fall for you. And that in itself was just as confusing." He shook his head, forgetting why his feelings for her had been so troublesome. "And now I'm sorry I let other things stop me from telling you before."

Minutes, she had only minutes to tell him pretty much everything she felt in only a few words. She wished she had time to absorb what he said. That was the problem though, they had both spent too much time worrying, weighing the good and the bad and now they were left with nothing to show for it. It didn't matter anymore, she could lay it all out there for him and she wouldn't know if she felt more than him or the other way around. It didn't matter. She inhaled, opening her mouth to respond, only to stop on her words at the sound of bending metal. Chloe spun her head around, yanking it from Oliver's hands, and looked to where the broke door was. "Clark! The bomb, get rid of the bomb!" He opened his mouth to question her, confusion etched on his face. "Now Clark!"

Oliver watched the other man zip passed them, blowing up wind as he went and then a second later the bomb was gone, disappeared along with Clark. He couldn't believe it. Saved, with only a minute and some change to spare. Only minutes ago he had just accepted the end of his life was standing right in front of him, he had seen the end, and now there was no end in sight.

"Oliver." Chloe waited for him to turn around and face her again, the shock at Clark's entrance still etched on his face. In only seconds Clark would be back. There was no time for her to say anything. Instead she leaned into him, pressing her lips against his, telling him in the quickest way she knew how that he felt that same way. Their lips met for only a few brief seconds before she pulled away. Not a word was said as they stared at one another, because Clark's arrival was imminent. As if on cue he was there again, ending the moment between them, leaving still so much more unsaid.

"Hey, you two okay?"

At the sound of their savior's voice Oliver turn his head to face him. "Yeah, thanks Clark. Cut it a little close huh?" He pushed himself up into a standing position and looked down a Chloe who was slowly following. Forgetting about Clark for one moment he extended a hand to her.

Chloe stopped at the sight of his hand and followed the line of his arm all the way up to his face, and then hesitantly she laid her hand in his and allowed him to pull her up. "Thanks."

"Yeah, I think that was the point." Clark said and pushed away the now broken metal door. "Lex had this place pretty well soundproofed. I think once he got you in here he didn't want anyone hearing you, especially me. So much for him not being among the living."

"Yeah." Chloe furrowed her eyebrow at the mention of their enemy. "I'm going to have to look into that. Dead people don't just come back without some kind of help."

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

Chloe nodded in acknowledgment and followed slowly behind Clark, more than aware of Oliver's presence behind her.

"Chloe..." He reached out and grabbed her hand. "I-"

"Are you two coming or what?"

Oliver sighed. She smiled almost sadly up at him and he forced himself to drop her hand. Trying to finish their conversation would be impossible with Clark just outside the door. He just nodded and followed her through the doorway.

She'd sat in the tower for about an hour. Beginning the necessary searches for any clue as to how a dead man had just trapped her and Oliver in a room with a bomb. That was about as long as she could last before she jumped up from her chair and grabbed her jacket. Then the doors swung open. "Oliver."

"Hey." He looked looked over her quickly, noting the jacket in her hands. "Going out?"

"Um, I was, to see you. But now that you're here..." They stood there, staring at one another, silence hanging between them. "There's a big elephant in the room that no one wants to acknowledge."

"But you were coming to see me?" he asked. She nodded in response, leading him to believe she wanted to have the same conversation he had. Of course that didn't mean they were hoping for the same resolution. "I considered coming over here and excusing what happened as just two people under a whole lot of pressure."

"We were about to die." Chloe agreed softly, already feeling something turn in the pit of her belly at the thought of him retracting what he said. But he hadn't done that yet, had only admitted to considering it, which would have been rather foolish if that had been his intention.

"But then I would have been doing exactly what I had regretted when I thought we were going to die. Making excuses until I convinced myself it was for the best."

"I'm sure one of them being Lois," Chloe said simply, because that had been forefront in her mine. Not even necessarily because she was worried about Lois' reaction. Lois wasn't the kind of woman to be petty like that. She always thought herself one of the boys. No, Chloe was more concerned about the man in front of her, who at one point had considered Lois the only person he would ever love. Chloe wasn't so foolish as to think he loved her, but no woman would willingly venture anywhere near a relationship with a man who is hung up on another woman.

"One of the biggest," he admitted even while damning himself for doing so. No other woman would it have been such an issue with. But no other woman would have been the cousin of his old love, knowing every sordid detail about his doomed relationship with her, and how hard it was to come to terms with.

"If Clark wouldn't have come in when he did," Chloe began slowy. An hour ago she'd been prepared to admit everything; now she wasn't so sure. But it was only fair considering he had laid it all out for her. "I was going to say that I wish things had been different, then it wouldn't have been so hard to admit to falling for you too." She paused for a moment and he started to open his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. "I'm not done. I never said anything, or even wanted to acknowledge it to myself because I knew how much you loved Lois and if I was honest with myself I didn't want to risk anything again. Everything is hard enough as it is without the added fear of getting hurt by someone or worse hurting them."

Her face twisted in pain during her last words, and his mind went immediately to Jimmy. "We all feel we are going to be responsible for getting someone we care about hurt."

Chloe nodded, knowing that he also had a few instances where people he cared about had been a target because of him. "So then why are we here? Talking about this."

"Because I'm not sure exactly what should come next."

"You and Lois..."

"There hasn't been a me and Lois in years," Oliver countered, but he knew she knew that. That was the point she was bringing up. "I've been in a lot of different places over the past thirty years. One of them had been believing I was in love with a women who turned out to be a psychopath. At one time maybe I did kind of love Tess, when she was a different person and so was I, but that burned out pretty quick. And Lois...I thought I knew who I was." He recalled quickly the years that followed after the end of his relationship with Lois. A lot of things had changed. "I thought I was ready, where I needed to be. But I made mistakes, I did things..." Things he didn't even want to bring up at that moment.

"We all did." Chloe said softly, trying to ease away the pained expression on his face.

He nodded and forced himself to continue. "And that guy, who loved Lois, I wasn't him anymore."

Chloe nodded, and swallowed. "But you wanted to be." She said softly. "Tess and Lois. You admitted it was over, but you still loved them and you didn't want it to be. You wanted to be that guy again for Lois."

He could see himself falling fast. Being outdone by the fact that he had fallen for a woman that knew more about him than anyone. Normally that would have been a good thing, but not when she knew how desperately he had tried to be with Lois. "I did then." He took a few slow steps forwards, closing the distance between them. "And I remember how much it hurt to know it was over, that I couldn't be with her. I hate feeling like that. I didn't want to care about someone so much that it ate away at me."

"I'm not a substitute for Lois, Oliver. It might seem easier, but..." She took a step backward and started to turn away, but he grabbed her arm.

"And the reason I know I've moved on from Lois is because when I look at her I don't feel that pain, that hurt. When I saw her and Clark together it didn't eat away at me." He swallowed as he prepared himself take another chance. "I couldn't have cared less about them, because every time I see you it hurts. It hurts to know how much stands in the way of me saying what I really want to."

It had been a long time since Oliver had even hinted at any unrequited feelings towards Lois. As they stood there Chloe tried to remember quickly how many woman he'd been with recently. Here and there he had a date, attending some function with an unknown women. But none of them to be heard from again.

"To tell you the truth Chloe I'm starting to wonder if I'm damned to keep falling for woman that I can't be with." The thought of losing her because of the issues between them hurt deeper then he would have liked. "It took a while to deal with what happened with Lois, and I got through it. But the thought of having to go through that again..." He shook his head, trying to rid himself of the thought.

The weight of his words slowly began to set upon her. She was finally to start to understand what he was saying. Oliver wasn't just trying to convince her that he wasn't in love with Lois anymore, he was asking her not to push him away. Admitting that if she chose to, she had the power to hurt him just as much as Lois had. "I don't want to be hurt," Chloe admitted bluntly. It was her greatest fear. She had some anger and pain that she had yet to deal with.

He'd hurt them all, Oliver knew that. It was his actions that had initially driven them away. In Tess' case it was probably a blessing in disguise. Lois though, he'd left her, trying to do what he felt was right, putting aside his own feelings. In the end he only wound up making it worse. By the time he wanted to be with her again she had already moved on. Yet Oliver suspected that it wasn't his women she was referring to. Chloe had been hurt numerous times. Her seclusive nature, a more recent development since Doomsday, was evidence of that. He knew she hid herself away from others in order to protect herself. She wasn't hidden from Oliver though, he was imbedded in her life now even more than Clark. It made it much easier for him to hurt her than anyone else. "I understand that better than anyone and I'd do anything necessary to stop you from ever getting hurt again."

Her eyes still red and puffy from crying earlier, were once again wet with tears. She blinked furiously and tried to look away, but his hand on her cheek stopped her. Their eyes met, conveying exactly how much they both needed each other. As much as Chloe feared risking her heart again she couldn't turn away. "Oliver..." She wanted to say something, tell him as much as he told her, but words were lost to her. So instead of talking she stepped forward and slid her hands into the hair at the back of his head as she grasped his shoulder pulling him down until their lips met. Her eyes slid shut the first time his lips moved against her. And when his arm wrapped around her waist, his other hand burying in her hair, hauling her up against him, she let go of the excuses.

Oliver pulled his lips back and pressed his forehead against her own. "Before I put Lex in the ground again, remind me to thank him." She smiled up at him easing away his fears with a single kiss and an endearing smile. Oliver dropped his head again, claiming her lips in a much more passionate kiss, crushing her against his body. For the time being there was no way he was letting her go, not now that he had her. The past couple times he'd screwed up. He chased people away and ultimately would up trying to get them back. It had always been too late. With Chloe he had another chance. He'd learned from his mistakes. Oliver wouldn't make the same mistake with her; he wasn't going to let her go.


End file.
